Rosenberg: Poems & Plays

BOOK REVIEWS out by Chesterton, most explicitly in the novel Manalive (1912), with its raucous love of life and distinctions between pantheism and an understanding of the orthodox doctrine of Creation. Knight then moves on to Chesterton's use of the grotesque as corruption or deformity within the created order; here he discusses The Man Who Was Thursday as an example of "the deformed grotesque," emphasizing why the novel carries the subtitle "A Nightmare." All this gets even more involved when Knight scrutinizes solipsism and community and the concept of free will. In place of the popular caricature of Chesterton as a lightweight PoIlyanna , Knight postulates a writer who constructed a multifaceted and comprehensive response to evil. To end on a less serious note Knight concludes his weighty study with a quotation from one of Chesterton's fictional characters: "I know that people have written all kinds of cant ... about the cause of evil; and why there is pain in the world. God forbid that we should add ... to such a chattering monkey house of moralists ." G. A. CEVASCO __________________ St. John's University Rosenberg: Poems & Plays The Poems and Plays of Isaac Rosenberg. Vivien Noakes, ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. xlviii + 426 pp. $175.00 VIVIEN NOAKES'S EDITION of Rosenberg's works is a welcome addition to scholarship on this much-neglected poet. Despite being regularly anthologized, remarkably little has been written about Rosenberg 's work. Besides the several biographies and the occasional article and book chapter, little other commentary exists on Rosenberg's work. One hopes this excellent new edition may serve as a catalyst for renewed interest. The book begins with an introduction that covers the textual history and problems associated with Rosenberg's works. It also discusses Noakes's process in editing. This is followed by an extended chronology of Rosenberg's life. Noakes then includes all of Rosenberg's extant poems, fragments, and plays. A list of accidental variants follows along with commentary (primarily textual) on the works. The volume concludes with two appendices, one listing the contents of the volumes that Rosenberg published during his brief lifetime, the other listing the contents of a large black notebook in which Rosenberg composed a number of his works. 223 ELT 49 : 2 2006 From a practical standpoint, Noakes's edition is necessary since there is no other complete or relatively complete edition of Rosenberg currently in print. Ian Parsons's edition, The Collected Works of Isaac Rosenberg: Poetry, Prose, Letters, Paintings and Drawings (Oxford University Press, 1979), is out of print, and the two recent collections of Rosenberg's poetry, Isaac Rosenberg: Selected Poems and Letters, Jean Liddiard, ed. (Enitharmon Press, 2003) and The Selected Poems of Isaac Rosenberg, Jean Moorcroft Wilson, ed. (Cecil Woolf, 2003), are both merely collections of selected poems. In contrast, Noakes's complete or near-complete works of Rosenberg provides scholars with access to all of those poems included in Parsons's edition, as well as some additional writings not collected before. In addition to the practical use of this edition in providing extensive access to as much of Rosenberg's poetry and drama as is available, Noakes provides this first truly scholarly edition of Rosenberg's works. Parsons's edition is useful but does not provide the kind of extensive textual history, editing process, and other apparatus that Noakes's does. Noakes's painstaking efforts to tease out and reconstruct Rosenberg's work from its complex textual history is truly impressive. At the same time, Noakes's careful documentation of the editing process allows for scholars to follow his decisions in arriving at final forms of Rosenberg's works. Thus, scholars can consider the choices that Noakes made and decide for themselves whether they wish to consider alternative versions of Rosenberg's works. I particularly like the fact that Noakes consistently errs on the side of caution rather than speculation in dating and reconstructing Rosenberg's compositions. The introduction to this collection is clear and helpful in explaining how Noakes produced this edition. It also clearly shows the monumental task involved in trying to come to any definitive conclusion regarding the final form that Rosenberg intended for his...